Wreckanoid

Next-gen Arkanoid

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Wreckanoid, like many of today’s flash arcade games, borrows much of its inspiration from the classic arcade games that we grew up with. Unlike many of those same flash games though, Wreckanoid substantially alters the formula and provides enough additions to keep it fun.

Wreckanoid was built for the wiicade.com website- meaning that you can boot up your wii, navigate to the page, and play it with your wii remote. All the controls are mouse-based, no need to worry about any keyboard control. The first thing you’ll notice that makes this game much different from your standard breakout game is that the paddle is much more versatile. Instead of being limited to horizontal movement, you also have large vertical area to move the paddle up and down in. This is because the velocity of your paddle affects the strength of your shot. Move the paddle to the bottom and swing upwards to connect with the ball as it is coming down, and you’ll blast through more blocks that you would usually. The blocks themselves also take varying levels of damage. Tap a block a few times and it will quietly disappear- smash into it though, and you’ll have block shards raining down from above.

What really makes Wreckanoid fun though is the variety of blocks and powerups to interact with. Instead of just multicolored blocks with different levels of strength, you’ll get some of that mixed in with ice-covered blocks, gold-covered blocks, glass blocks, and more. There’s even more powerups to check out though, from your standard gun and laser attachments, to the not-so-common chainsaw and guided missile pick-ups. In fact many levels make strategical use of the powerups, so you’d better get acquainted with them unless you feel like bouncing your ball into steel blocks for an hour.

The particle system really brings these aspects together. It’s strangely satisfying to crash through the blocks, just to see the wave of pieces and particles that result from it. The games also throws in appropriate effects like screen shakes when you hit something explosive. This can make it hard to keep track of the ball sometimes, but think of it as part of the challenge. Plus you can turn the particles off if you really want.

There’s plenty of replay value here too, don’t be fooled by the arcade aspect of it. Arcade mode features 40 individual (and comically captioned) levels to play through, broken into three difficulties. Although playing through even the hardest levels isn’t that tough, because your lives get reset every round. You have to really suck at this game to lose all your lives on a single level. The beginner levels also do a good job of explaining the powerups and block-types to you. After that you can head over to survival mode, where you face constant wave of blocks to see how many you can smash up with three lives (for high scores nonetheless). And if that wasn’t enough, you can also make your own custom levels to play with, or have the game load a random level for you in quickie mode.

The only real problem that I ever encountered in the game was that there were a few occasions when the ball seemed to pass right through my paddle when I quickly moved to hit it. The game also could have used some extra graphical variety in the level backgrounds, aside from always being plain white with the wiicade logo attached. Nothing major though. Considering the short expected play time of arcade games like these, this is one of the most complete packages you’ll come across.

Click here to play Wreckanoid






Comments (1) [view all]

  Latest comment left by redhotpoker:

A very well crafted game. The wii functionality is a ablalute god send as the wii is having problems at the moment reading any flash game or movie above flash player7. But his works so well i playd into the small hours of the night. The levels are well planed out and You never feel as if the game is being unfair and setting you an impossible chalange. Also while the the physics are well instrumented i cant help but feel that when im flinging my wii remote up and down that there should be alot more power being generated. This is however a very minor note and doesn't subtract from this being a fantasticaly well made game. Well done Neg. 9/10

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